


break common laws in twos and threes

by etben



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 19:10:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/pseuds/etben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OR, How Tony And Pepper Make It Work.</p>
<p><i>They get five glorious minutes all to themselves, wrapped around each other on the rooftop, before reality comes back.</i>  Tony and Pepper, in the interval between IM2 and the Avengers, making it work together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	break common laws in twos and threes

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to J. for tolerating my enormous outpouring of FEEEEEELINGS about Tony and Pepper and reading this as I wrote it; thanks to A. for reading this over and telling me when it was done.

They get five glorious minutes all to themselves, wrapped around each other on the rooftop, before reality comes back. In this particular instance, it comes in the form of Marcia Hayworth from PR bursting out of the stairwell, panting, wild-eyed, with her suit jacket ripped to shreds.

"They need a statement," she gasps out. "CNN, MSNBC - I jammed the elevators, but they'll be right behind me, we need to make a statement as soon as we possibly can - " 

"Do you have the Expo crisis boilerplate - "

"Right here," she says, whipping out her tablet and passing it over, "But we need to - "

"Revise it, obviously," Pepper says, glancing over the familiar language, flicking her fingers to change the wording. "Make it clear that this was Hammer Tech, without actively accusing - oh." Tony is leaning against the wall, smirking at the two of them. "I'm sorry, Tony, did you - I mean, I guess you're really the more logical person to - "

"Who's more logical than you, Madame CEO?" he says, winking at her. "Call me when you're done, I'll give you a ride back to the house." He flicks a sloppy salute at her and drops over the side of the building, jetting away just as the stairwell door slams open again, reporters rushing forward to ask what the CEO of Stark Industries has to say about the latest developments at the Expo, and is it fair to say that Justin Hammer is responsible, and where was Tony Stark in all of this?

Pepper Potts takes a deep breath, straightens her shoulders, and faces the cameras.

"The incidents at the Stark Expo this evening..."

It's a short statement - less than 500 words, done in ten minutes. No, this was not anticipated. Yes, their crowd security measures were implemented. No, she doesn't have any casualty numbers as yet, but of course Stark Industries will release those as soon as they're available. No, she doesn't have any information on the scope of the damage, although, yes, clearly it has been quite extensive. Yes, they will be working with the community to make all necessary repairs. Yes, she is able to state with confidence that the rogue tech was of Hammer Industries manufacture, not SI. Yes, Tony Stark was present, helping their crisis response personnel on the ground and in the air. Yes, Tony Stark is well. As far as she's aware, he's gone home. 

They have questions, but Pepper has more than a little experience with deflection. She smiles, and smiles, and directs them to the PR division of the Expo, Marcia Hayworth, managing director. At the back of the crowd, Marcia rolls her eyes and makes for the stairs, taking the head start Pepper is giving her.

When the last cub reporter has wandered off for more forthcoming prey, Pepper lets her eyes fall closed, just for a minute, pressing her fingertips lightly against her temples. The sounds of the Expo - cleanup crews calling instructions across the rubble; traffic at the exits; news choppers overhead - wash over her, almost loud enough to mask the sound of a man in a large metal suit coming gently to rest a few paces behind her.

"I didn't ask," she says. "Do you want it back?"

"I was never a very good CEO, really," Tony says, bringing his metal arms around her waist. "I mean not that I'm not a genius, because clearly I am, but it's been said that I can be somewhat — "

"Unreliable? Erratic? Impossible?" Pepper turns around, smiling up at Tony, who makes a face.

"I was going to go with _distracted_ , myself, but I suppose if you want to slander the good name of Stark Industries' leading scientific mind —"

She kisses him, then, because slander isn't really what's on her mind.

Not that sort, at least.

*

It takes a while, but they sort things out. Pepper will stay on as CEO, because unlike Tony, she actually _likes_ it. 

"I mean, you do, don't you? I'm not just forcing you into this job out of, I don't know," Tony says, waving his hands around, "some twisted fantasy where you boss me around?"

Pepper laughs, and not just because she's pretty sure Tony's forgotten all about the coil of wire in his hand.

"I like it, Tony," she says, and she _does_ : she likes managing people and situations, and she likes figuring out what's best for Stark Industries as a whole and then making it happen. She even likes dealing with the press, and not just because the Bugle sends a photographer who is actually too awkward and adorable to be believed - she likes setting the record straight, and talking about things she cares about, and making it clear to everybody that SI is well worth being proud of.

Since the Expo, Pepper's learned that she also enjoys eviscerating Hammer Industries and selling the useless parts for scrap. Petty, probably, but Pepper's pretty sure that she's earned it.

Tony's role is a little harder to nail down. Left to his own devices, he'd split his time between the workshop and the bedroom, with an occasional day trip to go fight evil. Pepper has to hand it to him: his presentation on the matter is extremely persuasive, not the least because it ends with the two of them in bed yet again.

"No, seriously, though," he says, when she calls him on it, "What's wrong with my plan? I think that sounds like a perfectly reasonable lifestyle - especially if I can make you wear _that_ all the time, that is going right into the contract - hey!" He rolls his eyes, and she slaps his ass again, pulling the half-robe around herself. "Does Stark Industries use violence as a negotiating tactic, now?"

"But that's just it," she says, dropping onto her back beside him. " _Stark_ Industries, Tony - I can't just let you hole up in your lab all day. And no," she says, before he can get the words out, "we are not renaming to Potts Incorporated; that sounds ridiculous."

Tony rolls over and runs a hand up her belly, soft and soothing through the delicate fabric. "I don't know what you want me to say, Pep," he says. "Of course I want to stay involved in the company, but you know and I know that whatever good I managed to do as CEO, I did mostly because you reminded me." He shrugs. "I want to build things, I want to support you, I want to do good in the world - isn't that enough, for a start?"

Pepper thinks about it for a long time, heat seeping from Tony's hand into her skin, listening to the syncopation of their breathing and the soft hum of the arc reactor.

"Monthly meetings," she says, finally. "Or quarterly, maybe, but I think monthly is better, at least to start with, maybe even bimonthly. We leave this—" she gestures at the two of them "—behind, and we talk about Stark Industries, figure out what we need to handle together, what we need to delegate, how to handle public appearances—"

"—what I need from R&D, what things should level up to the main labs for testing," Tony finishes. "I like they way you think, Pep," he says, nodding. "Keeps the two of us in touch, keeps R&D in the loop of what I'm doing and vice versa, but it keeps me out of the way of the business end of things unless you need me there." He narrows his eyes, then nods again. "Agreed, on two conditions."

Pepper sighs, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against the pillow. "What conditions, precisely?"

"First, we have our monthly negotiations over takeout—I don't care what, we can flip for it, I just want the two of us and takeout, somewhere other than HQ."

"Not in your lab, either," Pepper warns, and Tony nods. "Done, then. What's your second condition?"

Tony grins. "You're not allowed to wear pants," he says, sliding down her body.

"I hope you don't think you— _oh_ —use that as a negotiating tactic, Mr. Stark," she says. Tony hmmms thoughtfully against her inner thigh, brushing two fingers against her labia.

"You're welcome to reciprocate, Miss Potts," he says, and then neither of them say anything for a while.

(He puts both conditions on the official rules for their monthly meetings, and Pepper rolls her eyes, but she signs anyways.

She does _not_ , however, let him get away with calling himself Chief Officer of Creating Knowledge.)

*

"Hear ye, hear ye," Tony says, waving a buffalo wing. "The inaugural meeting of the—" he pauses, frowning. "Did we decide what we were naming this?" 

"Tony—"

"Fine, fine — of the Stark Leadership Intelligence Committee, is hereby called to order. First order of business, we need a new name."

"First order of business," Pepper corrects him, "we need a new project. And I need another wing."

Tony lifts up his plate. "What's yours is mine, you know that, Potts - _mi pollo es tu pollo_ , etcetera." She takes one from the edge of the plate and he sets it back on the table.

"And the project?"

He sighs. "Don't we have enough on our plates? I mean, there's the helicarrier, right, that's going to take me at _least_ a couple of weeks—and then they have to make it and I'll have to fix whatever gets screwed up in the construction phase, so figure, what, two months, two and a half? And I was thinking we should move out here, we can do that, right? Just, if I'm going to be working with SHIELD, it might make sense to have a base of operations on this coast—not the mansion, I hate the fucking mansion, maybe something downtown? Oh, and I had a thought about the latest version of the armor, oh man, you are going to _love_ this one, I got the idea from—"

"I _know_ , Tony," she says, folding her legs up under her. "But that's all on _your_ end."

Tony blinks. "Is that...not what we're discussing?" But his brain, as always, is faster than his mouth, and so immediately he nods. "For the company, no, I see—because we had the Expo, okay, and that was public and, yes, admittedly, something of a—"

"—disaster?"

"Disaster, setback, moment to my staggering heroism, potato, potahto—what you're saying is that Stark Industries needs to be seen to be _doing_ something that isn't just bankrolling my utter awesomeness."

"Yes," Pepper says, nodding. "Not that I think that's what we're doing—"

"Right, of course, but you also know how many different patents we've gotten from the work I've done on the armor, so you're not exactly an unbiased observer, here, Potts."

She does: Stark Industries currently holds one hundred and forty eight patents resulting directly from Tony's work on the armor, plus an additional seventy or so that are expected to go through sometime within the next eighteen months. The work Tony's done on the suit has applications in cell phones, in home security, in military and commercial aircraft, in natural language processing; they've even got a patent on the arch supports in the boots.

"We need to show people how this benefits them," she says, gesturing to the glowing circle in the center of Tony's chest. "The Iron Man is great, but we need to make it clear what the applications are for day-to-day life." She shrugs. "When we made weapons, distance was good—

"—because weapons, right," Tony says, nodding.

"—but now that we're _not_ doing that, we need to bring things home a bit," she finishes.

Tony stares off into space, tapping his fingers idly against the faceplate of the arc reactor, then sits up straight.

"Moving the headquarters," he says. "We're going to - oh, this is going to be great, bringing things home, hah, this is going to make Hammer Industries look like absolute _amateurs_ , remember when their warehouse in Rochester collapsed? And I didn't even have to do _anything_ , it was great."

Pepper nods; it _was_ great. "And the application for Stark Industries—"

"Is that the whole thing is going to be powered by arc reactor, obviously," Tony says. "We'll need to get on the horn with—do you know who handles people digging in the river? Because it's going to have to be huge, obviously, and the city itself is a little too dense to really—JARVIS, can you call up a schematic of Manhattan? Yeah, and just—" Without a word, he's handing her a plate of buffalo wings and leaning over the coffee table to fiddle with the map that's appeared, tweaking the resolution and the orientation with greasy fingers. "Right, and then, make _that_ the center, give me a radius of—" he draws a sweeping arc around the centerpoint with his thumb and his index finger. "JARVIS, you're a prince."

"I aim to please, sir," JARVIS replies, and Pepper leans in to look at the glowing circle laid over the map of midtown. The design Tony's laid out is enormous, ten times the size of the big arc reactor at the factory, and centered around a glowing dot alongside Grand Central. They own the property, Pepper thinks—one of the things they got from Hammer Industries. Offices, mostly; she'd been planning to rent it out, maybe use the top floors for SI business. As she looks at it, Tony pokes the sweep of the reactor line, adding access points and power stations and muttering to himself in a steady undertone; they show up as glowing dots, beads in a necklace around most of Manhattan.

"Would that even work?" she asks, finally.

"Pep, you're killing me," Tony says. "Miniaturization was the hard part - we just never bothered making it bigger because the palladium was so expensive. Not that the new stuff isn't," he adds, "but the power output is higher, too, so it balances out." Pepper raises her eyebrows at him, and he shrugs. "So, what, say we move R&D out here—or, well, the main labs, the ancillary stuff should probably stay where it is—but take everything in California, plus most of the New Mexico stuff, throw in ten floors of living quarters, twenty floors for the business end of things— JARVIS, back me up here," he says, still flicking his fingers over the table, sketching out the elegant sweep of a building.

"The proposed design would generate sufficient power for the enterprises enumerated, sir," JARVIS says, and Tony nods.

"Throw in a restaurant, a few shops, security station—we're talking a building that can power itself for at least a year, probably more, at minimal cost." Tony beams up at her, brilliant, delighted, his hands still in constant motion. "What do you think, Potts?"

"Clean energy," Pepper says, finally, thinking about it. "Generate it for Stark Tower, sell the rest back to the grid at a discount - "

"Make the world a better place," Tony says, grinning at her. "What do you say, Pepper?"

Pepper smiles back. "I say, wipe your fingerprints off the coffee table," she says. "I'm going to see about getting in contact with the Harbor Commissioner."

***

So they make it work, after all - they build the Tower, and then aliens invade Manhattan, and then they re-build the tower. They catch on each other's sharp edges, still, sometimes; Tony is still terrible at remembering things that he doesn't think are important, and Pepper herself is perhaps not always the most patient of women.

"It's your fault," she says, gesturing at Tony with her chopsticks over moo goo gai pan. "I used to be patient, and then I started working for SI. You used up all of my patience, Tony Stark," she sighs, and he just laughs.

"Patience is for people who can't move as fast as we can, Potts," he says, and Pepper can't help thinking that he might be right.


End file.
